The cable car only took a few minutes, but I narrowed my attention onto my shoes ( those Derby loafers I bought when finishing my therapy training), and thereby, allowing time to expand, I tried to fathom what it was I wanted, or expected from this party. I'm coming to my end, was the only thought I could summon. But hadn't I thought this hundreds of times throughout my life? Possibly every other day. With an almost involuntary spasm, I felt inside my jacket, as if looking for something, and pulled out Helen's handwritten note. Ah, kindly Helen. When I mentioned going to France for a couple of weeks she'd written down a few places of interest I may like to visit. It was a sweet, even childish gesture, I thought at the time. After all, isn't Google everyone's best friend? Yet reading it now I see that she had listed the Grotte des Demoiselles as a place of interest, though surely not for the same reasons as me. I had a sudden memory of Helen telling me that her father had taught at the University of Toulouse. Perhaps writing down lists of places to go when she visited him as a child was a thing of significance. Kindly Helen. To be sat with her now, drinking tea by the sea...The cable car whirred along and I saw myself lunging for the wire cable. Would it shred my hands to pieces? Could I slow this thing with my own bare hands? And if I did, if I managed that without too much damage to the skin on my hands, would there be enough slack in the wire for me to hang myself? But why do that anyway? Who knows, I may even enjoy the party.
 

Grotte des Demoiselles. Thankfully, I was alone during the five minute ride into the cave. Clearly, I was arriving late and yet as I chunkered along in the cable car I also understood that it was nearly impossible to arrive late to an Axel party. Every guest was always earlier than they'd ever imagined. He'd chosen the Grotte for the launch of our book because staying at a constant temperature of 18 degrees for the last four thousand years, the cave had proven to be Axel's favoured wine cellar. I wondered for a moment if everyone, me, Axel, the entire Boat Party, whether we were all just...going home. Had we ever partied under the earth? I don't remember. There had been basements and castles all over Europe, but this was a drink in the furthest, deepest geology. A party at the core of the earth?  A geology deeper than me, at any rate. The central area of the cave is known as the cathedral. Over hundreds of thousands of years the accretion of dripping water has created two stalagmites that can only be considered, forgive me,  as God's first ever laugh. This central stalagmite is formed in the shape of Mary, mother of Jesus, holding her new born and looking down upon him in reverence. One could easily compare it to a Giotto, a Cranarch, a Botticelli, or any number of early Renaissance renderings. But at this point in the evolution of human culture, why bother? We tried and failed long, long ago. So this is what it is, it's God's laugh. That's what I thought, standing there next to a thin, elderly man in grey and black. To be fair, that was my first thought. God is taking the fucking piss...Only later did I imagine that maybe even geology is capable of the occult. Anyway, next to Mary, mother of Jesus, or not far, stands a second stalagmite. This one is formed in the shape of a huge cock and balls. It truly is a mad phallus in the manner of Mapplethorpe or Tom of Finland. But again, again....